He Shall Prepare a Way

December 1, 2013

So, it’s Sunday morning, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I have had a break from work for a few days.  It's been such a nice breather. We had Thanksgiving dinner here. There were 6 of us, me, Becci, Meagan, Kyle, Michelle, and Emmett. It was just right, festive, but relaxing. I enjoyed making the meal, and Becci helped me, which was fun. She put her own little touches on things by making place cards and little pretzel and oreo turkeys and we got some pretty dinnerware and a table cloth to make things look nice.

I haven’t been doing a lot of writing lately, and I think that I should get back to it since I have a moment of space in time to breathe, albeit briefly.

I’ve been thinking about talents and callings a bit this week.

Last Sunday Brother Henne asked me to be one of the ward organists. They have 4 of them in our ward. They have discovered that busy moms with young children like it better when they only have to play once a month, which is what they were doing before the ward split. Now that our ward has been reconfigured, they were looking for a couple more people to help out as organists, so they could keep this going. I think it’s a great idea. Share the wealth and all of that—so anyway, they asked me if I could play. Brother Henne wondered if it would be a stretch for me to do this, and a few people wondered if I was nervous, but I said yes I’d do it and no I’m not nervous. It’s been awhile since I have been called to accompany the singing at church, but I’ve done it before. I told them I was much more nervous when they called me as an organist for Sunday School while I was still in High School. I’m not nervous today. If the Lord wants me to be an organist, then I trust that he’ll make an organist of me. I am excited to become something that I've always wanted someday to be.

I don’t remember clearly when I started wanting to be able to play the piano, but I’m sure it had a lot to do with going to church and loving the piano music there. I begged my parents to let me learn to play the piano enough that they actually bought me one, even though I would be the only one who would be using it, and even though they did not have a lot of extra cash. I never really became an amazing pianist, but I learned to play enough that I could accompany at church, and that was my goal. After I got married, it wasn’t too long before I got my husband to buy his mother’s piano, so I could have a piano in my home again. Through the years I was called a few times to play for ward choir or primary, and I have been playing to accompany our school choir for a few songs each Christmas and Spring for the concerts at school over the last several years.

I always wanted to be an organist in the temple, I always thought that that would be such an amazingly peaceful job to just sit and play hymns in the temple chapel. I wasn’t sure this would ever happen, because I didn’t figure I had reached a competency level sufficient to ever be called as a ward organist, but here it is, my first step to get there, and I am excited to be given this opportunity to develop my skills to a new level. I can’t guarantee that I will ever play in the temple chapel, but, it could happen.

I know that people sometimes think that doing something a bit outside of your comfort zone is something to be shunned or feared, but I don’t think that’s how we should look at callings in the church.

I like to reference Nephi’s attitude to the assignment he got from his priesthood leader, his father: “ I will go and do the thing which the Lord has commanded, for I know that the Lord giveth no commandment unto the children of men, save he shall prepare a way for them that they may accomplish the thing which he commandeth them.”

Being obedient and accepting assignments in the church gives us opportunities to develop talents and to show our faith. I was thinking yesterday, that in accepting his duty, Nephi and his brothers did all that they could think of to do to accomplish the task their father had given them, but even so, they could not accomplish it. It was beyond their capacity to do so on their own. Only Nephi understood that they did not need to depend on their strength alone. He had enough faith to step out beyond his knowledge and understanding, and to extend his faith in the Lord as his only preparation to accomplish the job. He gave the task, in a sense, back to the Lord, and became an instrument in the Lord’s hands to accomplish the task, as the Lord would have it be accomplished. It thus becomes obvious to all that the Lord accomplished the task of releasing the plates to the family of Lehi. The sons of Lehi did not do it on their own. Why do you think the Lord accomplished the task in this way? Why did he manifest his hand so clearly and so clearly show their failure to get the plates through association, riches, persuasion or any other way?

Sometimes to get the full lesson being taught by the Lord, we have to look at things in different ways and ask different questions. Why does the Lord give us tasks to do that we feel we are not fully qualified to accomplish on our own? Does he not then give us the opportunity to be qualified; to be lifted up through our faith, and through his guidance and blessing? Does he not then test our faith to see if we will continue as we have started, and when we have fully demonstrated our commitment, do we not then see the miracle of the hand of God in our lives,  lifting us up and providing the way?

I say that we do. So should we not then be anxious to serve in whatever place the Lord would call us to serve in--fully expecting that if we do what we can do by our own efforts, that the Lord will magnify us to fit our calling? I love it when I can see the Lord’s hand in my own life, when I can see the path that I have walked being guided by the Lord. Usually it is in hind sight that I see what has occurred, but sometimes it is quite obvious while it is happening as well. Even so, time usually gives us a unique perspective when we look back and see what the Lord has made of us.

It is so for me, with the organ playing. In the blessing I got when I was set apart I was told that I would be able to use the talent that the Lord gave me to bless the lives of others, that I could “bear my testimony” through playing music, and that I would “receive revelation and comfort from the Holy Ghost” through practicing the music, that The Holy Ghost would be close to me at these times. It was weird to think of playing the piano as a talent that the Lord gave me. I guess I had not really thought of it that way exactly.  It had become something that I just sort of learned to do. Now, thinking back and forward, it seems like more than that—and that’s kind of cool.

. . .a Thanksgiving Thought

Sometimes I look around at all of the things I love in my life, like my sunflower kitchen, my mountain view, my piano, and my cozy fireplace.

Sometimes I think about all of the people who make my life full and interesting and who center my world and make me whole,

and then I think of how all of these things came to be part of my life.

I like the song "The Wind Beneath my Wings." I have always kind of associated that song with ones parents. They give us so much initially to sort of launch us into life and hold us aloft.

So with that thought in mind, I was thinking about another person who really has become the foundation of my life today. This person is not so much the wind beneath my wings, as he is the legs upon which I stand.

Without him I would be less than whole.

Without him, the people and things that I currently hold most dear, would be gone, and my life would instantly be something completely different.

That person is you, Kirby Crowley.

After 30 years together, I find that making a life with you has made of my life something both meaningful and joyous--not without trial, no-- but a life that has given, even to trials, purpose and significance that transcends the moment, making temporary pain or discomfort an inconvenience, rather than a calamity.

I was just thinking that I should acknowledge this thought by writing it down, and by thanking you, both for holding me up, and for the making of us, which has become so much more than anything I could have made of myself.

Life is good. . . .